1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system delivering video picture information, and more particularly, to a delivering apparatus delivering video picture information according to a request from a user, a receiving apparatus receiving video picture information delivered from a server device, and a storing device receiving and storing video picture information.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a video picture information delivering system delivering video contents according to a request of a user from a server device, which stores video picture information, via a network has started to widespread. Such a system is generally called a VOD (Video on Demand) system.
In the above described video picture delivering system, a terminal device which receives and displays video picture information normally comprises a function for making a request to make special reproduction (skip, fast-forward playback, pause, etc. of moving pictures) in addition to a function for making a request to deliver moving pictures to the server device. In the meantime, the server device reads from the storing device video contents corresponding to the request from the user, and delivers the read contents to the terminal device of the user as shown in FIG. 1. Here, this server device comprises a function for skipping a moving picture, or for halting the delivery of moving pictures according to a request of a user.
Incidentally, a video picture desired to be securely viewed by a user is often inserted in video picture information delivered by the above described system. For example, a video picture of an advertisement of a sponsor of the video picture information is inserted in the delivered video picture information. However, a user often skips the video picture of the advertisement by using the above described special reproduction function when reproducing the received video picture information. Here, if the video picture of the advertisement is not viewed by the user, it is expected that the sponsor will not offer funds for producing video contents in the current business model. Namely, good-quality programs can possibly decrease.
For this reason, various methods are proposed to avoid such a situation. For example, a configuration having a function for prohibiting the skip of a video picture portion of an advertisement, a configuration for charging an extra fee when the video picture portion of the advertisement is skipped, and the like are proposed.
However, there is a possibility that these methods are not user-friendly, or not accepted by users.
This problem can occur not only in a video picture information delivering system such as a VOD system, etc. but also in a case where video picture information received by a normal TV tuner, etc. is stored onto a storage medium, and the stored video picture information is reproduced.